2021 continued to show our need to connect with each other and focus on important issues and topics. The following 10 pieces were NCR's most read opinion articles and commentaries of the year.
Distinctly Catholic: 2020 began with the U.S. bishops' ad limina visits offering the chance for frank conversations with Pope Francis, but by year's end, opposition to him in the U.S. church was as strong as ever.
Your thoughts: In a recent column, NCR political columnist Michael Sean Winters discusses an article by Archbishop Charles Chaput talking about whether President-elect Joe Biden should receive Communion.
Distinctly Catholic's roundup of political news and commentary: Where solidarity meets expertise; bipartisan deal at McConnell's mercy; Cordileone backs Chaput, but still neither is archbishop of D.C.
Distinctly Catholic: The emeritus archbishop of Philadelphia has come out of retirement to explain to his benighted brother bishops that an impending scandal looms: Joe Biden might be given Communion. The horror!
Distinctly Catholic: It is good for Catholics to remind ourselves that the day after tomorrow, many of our nation's most intractable problems will require more than political solutions.
Distinctly Catholic: Amy Coney Barrett is a kind of cafeteria Catholic that continues to damage the U.S. church, content to let it become an upper-middle-class club for people with conservative sexual ethics.
Signs of the Times: Prayer breakfasts are generally not controversial events in the Catholic world, except when they are stages for giving awards to people like Attorney General William Barr.
"Finding Hope in the New America" served as the theme of this year's Napa Institute summer conference, but in the sessions of the 2020 virtual conference, the titular hope seemed to be in short supply.
